Moviefone got a chance to talk to Kevin Bacon about playing villain Sebastian Shaw in X-Men: First Class. Here are excerpts from the interview:
What can you tell us about your character, Sebastian Shaw, and how he figures into the plot?
You don’t see much [of his backstory] in the movie, but he’s kind of a self-made man. He lost his father as a young man, made his first million by the time he was 30 and first billion by time he was 40. He’s a very powerful billionaire and also, as it turns out, a mutant. He’s the leader of the Hellfire Club, which is a nightclub for the rich and extremely powerful. And he has a plot to take over the world, so that’s really fun. He’s incredibly good at manipulating people and at taking whatever kind of energy or ability they have and using it to his advantage, like if he’s talking to a German, he’s fluent in German. He’s very charming and able to get whatever he wants.
Is your look changing for the film?
My look is very different from the guy in the comic books. We decided pretty early on that that was not going to translate to film. But there’s a certain kind of style to the suits that I wear, but I don’t have anything extreme in the makeup department. When you first meet me — I don’t want to spoil it — but when you first meet me, I look a little different.
Are you signed on to more than one film?
I am, but whether or not I end up in any more remains to be seen.
Matthew Vaughn was planning a big action scene in a rotating room, but scrapped it after he saw ‘Inception,’ and said he needed to go bigger. How has he topped it?
I’m trying to think what scene that was. I remember hearing something about that, but I’m not sure if that was online or actually from Matthew. But we do have a really, really super cool scene in a hall of mirrors and that’s going to be really spectacular.
What’s the craziest-looking mutant or mutant power that will get audiences talking?
That’s hard to say because when you do a movie like this, so much of this stuff is happening in post. There were some practical things, like it’s no secret that Magneto has the power to move and bend metal and the way that’s handled right from the first scene in the movie is going to be really cool. It’s something we haven’t seen in any other movie so far.
The movie is set in the ’60s: Is Vaughn going for a swinging ’60s, James Bond look?
There is an element of that, certainly to my character. I’ve got some pretty nice pads and I’m kind of slick in that way. I don’t think it’s visually, in terms of camera moves, it’s not trying to recreate that. But it has an element of that. The set design is fantastic. I’ve only seen the sets that I’ve been on and they are really interesting and very ’60s modern and super cool, and beautiful. I have one set that’s kind of like an inner sanctum and then I also have a submarine; the inside of the sub has elements of my other set. I have my own set of style and wanted to translate it over to my board room and stuff. It’s great. I love the way it looks.
What’s the coolest part of the film?
That’s hard for me to say, not having seen the movie. But I think the youth of the movie, that is really exciting. You’ve got Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) and Zoë Kravitz (Angel) and James McAvoy (Professor Xavier) and all these young actors who are about to explode. When you see them become what we know of as the X-Men, to me, that’s really cool. The visual stuff, I can’t say, until I’ve seen the effects. But from a plot standpoint, watching the creation of that kind of elite squad and yet they’re all in this college dorm room kind of atmosphere, where there’s romances and drunken parties and people become friends and then they have a falling out. I think all that stuff is going to be really cool. All of these movies deliver something other than just another airplane blowing up because there’s interesting stuff going on between the characters.
What was the most fun part of playing this character?
I have a really newfound appreciation for those actors, Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., and Hugh Jackman, that are able to work within this kind of genre with all the green screen and create great, memorable performances. It’s very difficult; for me the most fun is always connecting on a scene and working with another actor to try to make that scene work. There was a scene near the end of the film between me and Michael Fassbender (Magneto) and the scene was okay, but I don’t think either one of us was figuring it out. So Matthew let us spend a weekend up at his house and really figured it out from an acting standpoint, what this moment really means between these two. And that’s the fun stuff. Hanging from a crane is fun too, but not as fun as actually connecting with another actor.
You can read the full interview here!
